The invention relates generally to a device to be electrically coupled with a data processing apparatus for reading stored data out of and writing new data in an IC card as external memory, and more particularly to an improvement of such device of the type where the IC card is loaded in a horizontal direction from a slit provided at one end of the device casing so as to make electrical engagement with conductive terminals mounted at the opposite end thereof for reading/writing.
The so-called IC card, which has a plurality of conductive terminals exposed to be flush with the surface of one side of the card generally made of plastics and electrically connected with a memory circuit and a central processing unit respectively embedded therein, has far more storage capacity than the magnetic card so that it is going to be widely used as a credit card, cash card, prepaid card, identification card and so on instead of the conventional magnetic card.
In order to read/write data in and from such an IC card having conductive terminals of various numbers and arrangements as external memory for various data processing apparatuses or computers, a particular device is necessary as referred to above as in interface.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,703 discloses a device of the art referred to above, which has a slit for card insertion formed in one end wall of the casing, conductive terminals mounted in the casing in the vicinity of the other end wall and a slider held by spring means so that when the inserted card abuts on a portion of said slider the card may push it against the force of said spring means to be brought in the operating position where said slider is held by a latch and conductive terminals there engage with those of the card, and when the latch is manually disengaged the card is ejected by the force of said spring means.
This is, however, disadvantageous in that the conductive terminals in the form of resilient metal contacts fixed to the housing wall may be worn and wear the contacts of the card and accidental or erroneous release of the latch and removal of the card during data processing may cause important results on either of the card and the data processing apparatus to be lost.
In order to avoid and overcome said defects, we, the inventors have proposed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 747,148 (now issued U.S. Pat. No. 4,724,310) an improvement which comprises essentially the carriage or the slider which may slide up to be in the reading/writing position when the card thereon is electrically engaged with a block having contact pins resiliently planted therein and the card may be automatically held at the tail end by locking hooks during data processing which may be released by solenoid means to be actuated in reply to the signal from the data processing apparatus.
This is, however, unsatisfactory in that since the card is firmly held by the carriage at one end and by said lock hooks at the other end, an undesiredly strong mechanical force is affected on the card, and that the sloped floor for the card to slide up inevitably causes the thickness or height of the device to be larger.